lifestyles
The Plight of the White Male
After a history of ruling the world, are white males experiencing a new type of discrimination? Or is the cost of multiculturalism simply more competition?
By Jenny Brannan Kansan staff writer
The recent trends represent an increasing awareness of diversity as well as an attempt to balance out the ratio of representation for women and minorities in the labor force, she said. Men, however, still hold the top executive positions in many fields and are expected to remain the majority in the labor force.
"If white males are being intimidated by this, it's ever so slight," Flores said. "The issue of equability is inching, not bulldozing, it's way through."
"I think there is a paranoia that's beginning that's unjust — at this time at least," she said. "White males haven't had to worry about how marketable they are before — only women and minorities have. Now, they're being challenged a bit."
Flores said that being a woman or a minority might serve as an advantage by helping open doors, but once inside, the candidates must prove themselves.
White males hold 59.8 million of the 127 million jobs in America, according to the 1993 Statistical Abstract of the United States. The current ratio of white males in the work force is not projected to change drastically by the year 2005. Of the 150.7 jobs projected to be available, 66.8 million will belong to white males.
"It's an advantage considering that if I meet the criteria, I might be looked at more closely, but then I have to do the rest." Flores said.
"White males are, have been and always will be in contention for jobs," Flores said. "The chances of white males being ousted out of positions are in their embryonic stages."
Gloria Flores, associate director of the Office of Minority Affairs, said that the feeling of insecurity among white males was unfounded. She said women and minorities simply were being given an opportunity — not a guarantee — for jobs.
The Job Market
In the year 2005, men still will remain the majority of the labor force participants, holding 53 percent of the jobs.
The net labor force growth for women between 1990 and 2005 is projected to be 26 percent.
- Women of Hispanic and Asian origins are projected to have the biggest increase — both at 80 percent. This will increase their participation in the work force from 3.6 million in 1990 to nearly 7 million by 2005.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau;
Currently, of the leading 20 positions for women, 11 are jobs that women have fulfilled historically.
■ African-American women are projected to exceed the average increase at 34 percent, which will raise the number from 6.8 million to 9.1 million workers by 2005.
■ White women will remain the dominant female participants but will see the smallest increase — 23 percent by 2005.
- Women are expected to earn 42 percent of all professional degrees by 2001.
- Currently, women earn 70 cents for every dollar men earn.
- By 2005, nearly seven out of 10 workers of all sexes will be between the ages of 1 and 45, which will include most of the students currently attending college.
- Total employment is expected to rise from 123 million in 1990 to 147 million in 2006.
By 2005, nearly seven out of 10 workers of all sexes will be between the ages of 25 and 45, which will include most of the students currently attending college.
Norman Yetman, chairman of the American studies program, said white men still had the advantage in most sectors of the labor force, despite the accomplishments of affirmative action.
"There's always been an equal opportunity program for white males." Yetman said. "Now it's being opened up to a broader pool of candidates."
Yetman said that the preferential treatment of white males in American society would continue but that in certain industries the male dominant network had begun to break down.
Much of the business done in society, he
said, occurs in informal social gatherings such as poker games and golf games at exclusive country clubs. That could create institutional barriers for women, but these types of networks will not die out because of the increased opportunities for minorities.
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Yetman said the actual job opportunities were not as important as the educational opportunities that led to jobs. He said the greatest changes in the composition of the labor force would come through higher education.
"The problem with minorities is getting them in where they can get the qualifications," he said. "Encouragement has to
Josh Parker, Norman, Okla., junior, agreed that white males had better opportunities through high school and college to earn the qualifications necessary to be a dominate majority in the labor force.
Still, Parker worries that jobs will be filled by less qualified candidates in order to fill a quota. He said that filling positions with anyone less than the most qualified candidate simply to fulfill affirmative action requirements undermines the future credibility of the minority group.
"Chances are, you might get the job if you meet the credentials as a women or a minority," Parker said. "But it might not be because you're the most qualified."
Although he said he felt that the present system might not be the most fair way to achieve better representation in the labor force, he saw no other way to give equal opportunities to everyone in society.
"At the current time, there's a big kick to put women and minorities in occupations to balance out the job market," Parker said. "I think it does come down to you and your own accomplishments, but it would be an advantage to be a minority."
Though white males feel the pressure of the increased competition in the labor force, most agree that equal opportunity awareness ultimately helps the labor force by virtue of fairness.
Craig Glass, Wichita senior, said that he felt the competition was long overdue and that it would increase the quality of people applying for jobs.
"It makes it harder, and your qualifications have to be a lot higher because everyone is getting a fair shot," he said.
Sara Hale, Fort Collins, Colo., senior, said she wanted to be taken seriously in the job market — not because she was a woman, but because she had earned respect based on her qualifications and performance.
"It raises questions when women and racial and ethnic minorities are placed in a position and their performance is second-guessed and scrutinized because people aren't sure if they earned the position on merit or because they're filling a quota," she said.
Flores agreed that women and minorities had to constantly be aware of their actions in the labor force because they acted as role models for change. These groups need more examples of success, she said, but the accomplishments they have made during the past decade certainly were a starting point.
She said the effects of affirmative action became complicated because the performance of a woman or a member of a minority in a high position set the standard to judge all members of those groups.
America is simply moving towards a better representation of the constituencies that the job market serves, Flores said. In reality, white males have little cause for alarm because people can't rely solely on their race or sex to get a job. The issue still comes down to qualifications.
"Women and minorities are just beginning to make a dent," she said. "White males think we're going to penetrate and blow them out of the infrastructure, and that's just not going to happen."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NOVEMBER 1, 1994 PAGE 4B
KU Life
News of the Weird
LEAD STORY
Former hostage Terry Anderson, who was kidnapped by terrorists in Beirut in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, filed a lawsuit against 13 federal agencies in September because they refused to release U.S. government documents pertaining to the kidnapping. Among the agencies' rejection letters was one from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which said it would not release records unless Anderson provided an "original notarized authorization" from his captors waiving their privacy rights.
POLICE BLOTTER
The Leesburg Daily Commercial in Florida reported in December on the response of shoplifting suspect Darlene Oar, 25, when asked for personal identification by Officer Scott Gray at the station house. When Gray asked Oar her color of hair, Oar allegedly stood up, pulled her pants down to her knee, and asked, "Why don't you look?" Oar was warned she would face additional charges if she continued to expose herself.
As part of an ongoing feud, according to police in Fairfield, Iowa, Ronald Switzer, 39, flew a small paraplane over the home of Mike Parsons in July and fired several rifle shots — perhaps the nation's first fly-by shooting. And in March, the FBI charged that James A. McClelland, 48, of Spokane, Wash., hired a man to murder his wife with a poisonous needle in a skate-by pricking.
Recent uses of live animals as weapons:
Two people in Camden, N.J., in August, and the owner of a store in Columbia, S.C., in May, said they were robbed by men brandishing only large, black snakes. Roland Wood, 31, said in July that he was assaulted by a man in Austin, Texas, who threw a Mexican freetail bat at him.
A woman in Coraopolis, Pa., decided not to press charges against her former boyfriend, whom she accused in June of chasing her with a snapping turtle in a fight about their breakup.
A 45-year-old Leesport, Pa., man fleeing a street robbery attempt in September was shot in the buttocks by the robber. The .22-caliber bullet lodged in his penis, but the man was in satisfactory condition after surgery.
Paul Bivens, 28, was charged in May with attempted burglary of a liquor store in Greenville, Miss., after police matched Bivens' fingerprints to the print on a severed finger that police found on the floor of the store — the result of the burglar's having slammed a door on his hand.